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May 23, 2018

Prime Minister Narendra Modi ‘will not walk back’ from India’s intention
to buy the S-400 air defence systems from Russia, even as president
Vladimir Putin assured the PM during his day-long visit to Sochi Monday
that Moscow’s relationship with Delhi is far, far better than anything
with Pakistan can ever be.

After spending six-and-a-half hours
out of eight in ‘one-on-one’ conversations with the prime minister at
his Black Sea resort, Putin capped his day-long wooing of Modi by coming
to the airport to bid him goodbye.

“The meeting went off very,
very well,” official sources told ThePrint, admitting that no one had
expected this last gesture of friendship. They pointed out that the
Russian president had not exhibited this kind of care with any of his
foreign guests over the past week – neither Syrian president Bashar-al
Assad, German chancellor Angela Merkel nor Bulgarian president Rumen
Radev.

A thrilled Indian delegation is nevertheless weighing the
Sochi outcome with care, aware that it is as much in Putin’s interest to
signal renewed warmth with a nation of India’s size and economic
strength.

Delhi’s determination to ignore the Trump
administration’s sanctions on Russia, through the wordy Countering
America’s Adversary Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) legislation which
came into force in January and which threatens to sanctions all third
countries – like India, Indonesia and Vietnam, who deal with Moscow in
the intelligence and defence spheres — is certainly a big boost to
Putin’s own strategy to diminish his former Cold War enemy.

India
will pay $4.5 billion to Moscow to buy S-400 Triumf air defence systems
– the agreement was initialled in 2016, but final price negotiations
are still to take place.

“India has no intention of walking back from the commitment it has made to Moscow on the S-400,” the sources said.

Clearly,
the Russian president went out of his way to lay the red carpet, even
dispensing with interpreters on the boat ride with the PM. Russian
foreign minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted telling Tass news agency that
the talks were “very intense.”

Putin realises that India slipped
out of Moscow’s ambit as Washington wooed it with the nuclear deal over
the last decade. He feels he has a chance to coax Delhi back into its
embrace – even as Delhi appears unwilling to deal with the daily
moodiness of Trump and unable to handle the invincible rise of the
Chinese.

Delhi’s big concern, Russia’s growing intimacy with
Pakistan, is also believed to have been addressed between the two
leaders. Putin is said to have assured the PM that Moscow’s interest in
Pakistan is limited to its influence with terror groups like the Taliban
in Afghanistan, and the hope that it can persuade them not to expand
their activities in neighbouring Central Asia and Russia.

Modi
and Putin are said to have discussed way to ‘work together to
circumvent’ sanctions that the US proposes to impose on third countries
who trade with Iran. Oil exports to India will be hit sooner than later,
and both agreed that the mechanism of an Asian clearing house is
temporary, just as it was last time around in 2012 when payments were
made. Barter is being contemplated.

For the time being, Delhi
hopes that the US will allow waivers on all Chabahar-related
expenditure, because the port will become an alternative to Karachi port
for Afghan goods. India is expecting to spend $500 million on the port.

Certainly,
Putin has had a good week. Tomorrow he will receive French President
Emmanuel Macron in Sochi and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in St.
Petersburg in a few days from now.

Modi returned Putin the
compliment just before he took off from Sochi, telling a group of
students, “I was with my friend for the whole day today. When he spoke
about the kids he was emotionally involved. I saw dreams in his eyes. I
saw a different person. I saw a Putin who was different from the
president.”